Unspeakable Things(21)

“Is that yours?”

I shook my head, my hair falling in my eyes. It sure wasn’t.

“Who does it belong to?”

“Heather,” I whispered.

“Cawl?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The shame was complete. Tears threatened, but I crammed them down.

Mrs. Janowski dropped her face into her hands for a moment. For a brief flash, I thought she was going to let me go.

“I’ve called Sergeant Bauer,” she said.

My breath intake was loud enough to startle her.

“He won’t take you to jail,” she said, misreading my shock. “He’s just going to talk to you about what will happen if you do this again. I must say I’m surprised you stole at all, Cassandra. You’re one of my best students. Is there something going on at home?”

The word shot out like a cannonball. “No.”

Mrs. Janowski’s eyes glittered. For a moment, I thought I’d blown it. People won’t understand how creative we are, Dad always said. If you tell them how we live, they’ll split us up, make you kids live with strangers. It’s your choice if you want that, but I sure don’t.

But she didn’t ask a follow-up question, not about my home life. “You’ll have to apologize to Heather for stealing from her. She’s on her way right now.”

God himself couldn’t have stopped my tears then. Why had Clam told on me? I wasn’t going to keep the lip gloss, but Mrs. Janowski wouldn’t believe that. Neither would Bauer. I just wanted to smell it, to pretend I owned it. Yeah right.

“Finally, you’ll have detention after school today.” Mrs. Janowski’s voice grew kinder. “But I won’t note this on your permanent record, Cassandra. Stop crying now. We all make mistakes. If you don’t repeat it, you’ll be fine.”

I nodded, miserable. Never in my life had I gotten detention. Same with Sephie. Detention meant parents getting involved, and Dad had been clear: stay below the radar. This was for sure worse than Sephie failing chemistry. The sun shone outside Mrs. Janowski’s window, its brightness surreal. I didn’t feel like I deserved to even look at it. Sergeant Bauer’s black-and-white pulled up. He must have been patrolling nearby when the call came in.

“There he is,” Mrs. Janowski said. Her voice was businesslike again.

Heather beat him to the office. She appeared scared, as I had, when she was ushered in. A jealousy burned in me, fast and hot, and then dissolved. She was going to get to walk out of here.

“Mrs. Janowski?” she said.

The principal pointed at me. “Cassandra has something to tell you.”

I couldn’t make eye contact with Heather. I snatched the plastic chocolate chip cookie container off the edge of Mrs. Janowski’s desk and held it out. “I took your lip gloss. I’m sorry.”

Heather plucked it out of my hand but didn’t immediately say anything.

I peeked at her. She was staring at the lip gloss, a line between her eyebrows.

“I said I’m sorry,” I said.

“I forgot I had this.” She looked at Mrs. Janowski. “Can I go?”

“Yes, Heather. Thank you. And there’s no reason to share with your classmates what has transpired here.”

Probably Mrs. Janowski meant well, but she sure didn’t understand how middle school worked. I wondered what my new nickname was going to be.

Heather left as Sergeant Bauer entered. He turned to watch her go before studying me, his head cocked. I saw him putting the pieces together. Mrs. Janowski must not have told him my name when she’d called him.

One of our students is a thief. Can you come by and put the fear of Jesus in her?

My pleasure.

“You’re Donny’s girl?”

“Yessir,” I said. I kept my stare locked on his. I’d been ashamed in front of Mrs. Janowski and Heather, but I wouldn’t be for him. I remembered what I saw him doing to Kristi at Dad’s party, all hunched over, their eyes slammed shut, their skin sweaty and soupy smelling, him wearing only that silver wristwatch and dog tags that made a metallic tink tink sound as he thrust.

“I’ll take this from here,” Bauer said to Mrs. Janowski, like he could dismiss her from her own office.

“I’ll stay if you don’t mind,” she said.

I wanted to hug her. Fucking, he and Dad had talked about at Little John’s. Fucking and mushrooms and every few years like the plague. I’d only heard those crude bits, the words grating like out-of-tune piano blonks.

“All the same to me,” Bauer said, perching on the edge of her desk, his hat in his hand. He drew a pen from his shirt pocket, but he didn’t reach for paper. He just pressed the button on the pen. Click click. Click click. “You know stealing is wrong, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Do you know that what you did at my dad’s party was wrong, too?

“What’s that?” Click click. Click click.

“Yessir.”

“Your dad would be very disappointed to hear his daughter is a thief,” he said. “Don’t you think?”

“Yessir.” But only because it might get him in trouble.

“You do this again, you’ll end up in juvie.” Click click. Click click. “Do you want that?”

“No, sir.”